


need for speed

by bearkwans



Category: IT (2017), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Blow Jobs, Eddie Kaspbrak is a Mess, Eventual Relationships, F/M, First Dates, Fluff, Hand Jobs, Kinda, M/M, Meet-Cute, Richie Tozier Flirts, Smut, Stargazing, almost public sex??, and he's shy as hell, beverly marsh is the only woman literally, eddie calls richie puppy, ie: stanlon, mechanic eddie, rich boy richie, richie's brain is a maze of metaphors what can i say, sprinkle of angst because i am a Lady, very descriptive?? if that's a thing, very little angst, what if i...
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-07-23
Updated: 2019-09-24
Packaged: 2020-07-11 22:09:15
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 20,138
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19935286
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bearkwans/pseuds/bearkwans
Summary: “I just… you just… and you’re? You’re Richard Tozier, who’s known for being a total dickback? I don’t get it.”“What is there to get, Eddie?” Richie asks and his voice is sad because he feels like his last name is some stupid fucking curse and his dad just had to be the mayor of Shitville, Maine. “There’s a clear reason I didn’t tell you.”Eddie leans back on Richie’s thighs but he hasn’t gotten off or asked Richie to move or left Richie’s car and said fuck you. “So you’re telling me that your family is the richest family in this entire town and you drive this? Interesting.”“That’s what you’re worried about? My fucking truck?”[or, richie needs a mechanic and eddie just so happens to be one.]





	1. road work ahead?

**Author's Note:**

> i got my license today!!!!! yesterday, if we're gonna get technical, because it's past midnight but time is a government construct anyways. it finally gave me the final push i needed to write this shit and here it Is 
> 
> anytime it comes to writing in richie's pov my brain all of a sudden decides that it's time to?? act like a fucking idiot?? i've got big shoes to fill with tozier the man 
> 
> enjoy!

Richie loves driving. 

He isn’t good at it, per se- his friends refuse to get in a car with him behind the wheel, and they’d been refusing since he first got his license at the ripe age of sixteen- but he’s passionate, and he always feels a close connection with his vehicle when he has two hands on the wheel and a foot on the gas. Richie isn’t driving the car, and the car isn’t driving him, rather they’re driving together, a complete circuit, a team.

That being said, Richie doesn’t know shit about cars. He knows there are two pedals, one steering wheel, three mirrors, four wheels, and (thank fucking god, or so Stanley would say) five seatbelts. But the mechanics of his truck? That’s a concept Richie doesn’t even want to try to comprehend, and that is completely fine because he doesn’t plan on becoming a mechanic anytime soon. 

What isn’t completely fine, Richie will later come to realize, is when his car begins to spit steam at him, burning his hands and his face and knocking his “manliness”- a concept that Beverly would argue is useless and idiotic and  _ toxic,  _ her favorite word- down a couple notches. 

He’d been singing, window rolled completely down, music blaring almost painfully in his ears, mouth hung open wide around the iconic, timeless words of Madonna’s  _ Papa Don’t Preach,  _ when rather than the stale air of Derry, Maine, Richie got a mouthful of sour tasting car steam. 

The insides of his truck, hidden primly beneath the shit-colored hood, are a maze of metal that Richie can’t even look at without going a little cross-eyed. As Stan would tell Richie if he was there, the only thing under Richie’s messy curls is more curls and  _ no fucking brain!  _ Richie resents that because he’s smart in other areas of life, like breathing which he’s got twenty-two years of experience in, and sometimes he wants to take the little Stan trapped in his head and throw him out of a window. 

Richie pulls his phone out of his pocket, blanching at the fact that it’s nearly eleven at night and no one in the town of Derry stays up past six pm, and Googles local Derry mechanic shops. (Is he supposed to call a tow-truck? The police?) He filters through the options, frowning when most of them read back  **CLOSED, CALL AT A DECENT TIME ASSHOLE.**

He grins at the 9AM-12AM marker at the bottom of a shop called  _ Eddie’s Place _ , clicking the call button and sticking his phone against his ear under all of his hair. 

It rings three times before a voice filters through the line, not automated like Richie’d been expecting, very real and very lyrical when it says, “Eddie’s Place, this is Eddie. How can I help you?”

“Wow, are you  _ the  _ Eddie of Eddie’s Place? I feel like I’m talking to a famous person.” Richie smiles at the laugh and small  _ ‘yes’  _ he gets in return and continues, “Anyways, my truck is steaming and I’m scared to drive it because steaming always leads to fires in the movies.”

There’s a hum on the other line, and some shuffling, then the clanking of metal meeting metal. “Did the car stop running and then start steaming, or did it start steaming while you were driving.” 

“While I was driving,” Richie says, throwing a forlorn glance at his car, still steaming but with less dedication than before, in small puffs of smoke that are probably ripping holes in the Ozone as Richie speaks. 

“Okay. Is it coming from under the hood or out of the tailpipe?” 

Richie moves to the back of his car, peeking at the tailpipe, releasing a relieved sigh when he finds it completely steam-free. “Under the hood. I love it when you talk mechanics to me, Eddie. We can talk about tailpipes all night.” 

Eddie doesn’t so much as laugh, as Richie had been hoping for, rather he lets out a small,  _ adorable _ huff of air that crackles down the line. “Unless you want to remain where you are until the morning I suggest you drop the shit. If you’re not too far off the grid, I can come fix your car up, but otherwise you’ll have to call a tow-truck.” 

“I’m near the intersection of Main and North,” Richie replies, tucking his  _ I bet you could fix me up, couldn’t you Eds?  _ joke right in his back pocket, because he doesn’t want to remain where he is until the morning, and he also has the sudden, terrifying thought that he’s flirting with some seventy year old man with four grandkids and children the same age as Richie’s parents. “It’s cold and I promise not to jump you, please tell me you’ll come do your magic to my truck. She’s my baby, and also my parents would decapitate me if I broke another vehicle.” 

Eddie laughs at that, just as pretty and lyrical as his voice and Richie is already creating a mental picture of him, hoping for once that his active imagination turns out to be at least a little bit right. “I’ll be there in fifteen. Just sit in the truck, and  _ please  _ don’t fucking touch anything. I can easily fix this issue but I refuse to fix anything else, got it?” 

“Sir yes sir,” Richie says, giving a salute that is lost to the world because Eddie can’t even see him. When he hears the beeping of Eddie hanging up and the silence that his phone naturally produces he shoves himself back in his truck, arms wrapping tightly around his middle. 

The sky is clogged up with smatterings of stars, and probably a planet or two although Richie can’t ever be too sure about that one, twinkling against the silver pool of the moon. Derry, despite being the shittiest place in the entire world, and possibly a not-so-secret portal to hell, has the best view of the night sky. Richie’s a bit scared to leave it because he’s so accustomed to sitting on his windowsill and watching how everything twinkles and winks and shines and keeps on moving even when he feels stuck in the same place. 

He leans as far back in his seat as he can and stares out of the front windshield, unwrapping one of his arms to point at the stars while he counts, starting at one and dozing off around fifty-six. 

  
  
  


Richie jumps awake with a tap at his window, shaking out his head before sitting up, rubbing at the ache to stay asleep that pounds at his eyes. He turns and squints through the fogged up glass, slowly pushing open his door. 

“Are you here to rob me?” He asks, slipping out of his truck and standing fully to face the man staring back at him. The moonlight provides a bit of shifting, low light that dances around them, illuminating who Richie presumes to be Eddie. He’s definitely not seventy years old, and he’s not what Richie was expecting at all, quite a few inches shorter than Richie’s 6’3”, with glimmery brown eyes and a head full of blonde hair. 

“No, although I just might if you keep looking at me like that. I know I’m short but there’s not a textbook definition of what type of person is allowed to work on cars,” Eddie says, and his voice is sharp, like he’s used to people commenting on his looks- just like Richie had been doing in his mind- and he’s tired of it. 

Richie nods, pushing his glasses up on his nose with a small smile. “I’m sorry for assuming anything. Thank you for coming so late.” 

Eddie’s mouth opens a bit in surprise, eyes widening just a smidge further than they already were, and Richie has a sudden, annoying little hope that his truck breaks and breaks and breaks because he wants to see that expression on Eddie’s face again and again. “You’re welcome. Two things: your name, and then you need to hold up a flashlight while I fix your truck.” 

Richie nods again, seemingly the only thing he can do, and motions to the front of his truck, where the hood is still hung open. It’s not steaming anymore, but Eddie seems to already know what the problem is because he pulls a black jug out of his tool bag, setting it down on the ground beside his feet. 

“I’m Richie,” he says, when his throat stops feeling dry at the sight of Eddie’s hands covered in oil. It shouldn’t be as hot as it is, but at this point in life Richie’s realized he can’t stop himself from liking what he likes, and if he likes this tiny man with oily hands and big brown eyes then that’s that. “You said something about a flashlight.” 

Eddie wordlessly tugs a flashlight from the pocket of his pants, handing it over to Richie. Their fingers don’t touch and Richie wants to hand the flashlight back and start over so he knows if Eddie’s hands are warm or cold or soft or calloused. Richie’s hands have always been embarrassingly soft, another thing Beverly hates that Richie notices, and there hasn’t been a day in his life when he put on lotion for anything other than masterbating, and even then it was only  _ one  _ of his hands. 

“I thought you’d be in a jumpsuit,” Richie says, only so that he can fill the silence and stop thinking about lotion on Eddie’s hand and his hand on Richie’s dick, oil and all. 

Eddie shakes his head with a little laugh, bending down to pick up the bottle from the ground. “That’s a myth. They only do that so mechanics can be sexy in movies, but really it’s fucking gross. Oil gets everywhere. Point the flashlight here, please.” 

Richie does as he’s told, glancing over at Eddie and seeing the shadow of freckles dotted along his cheeks, noticing the slope of his nose and the way his eyelashes curl and brush feather-like against his skin when he blinks. “I know you said to cut my shit out, but can I just say that you are much sexier than any mechanic I’ve ever seen.” 

“No, you cannot say,” Eddie replies, but the rose-red blush on his cheeks is answer enough for Richie. 

Eddie uncaps the bottle leaning forward to glance into the inner workings of Richie’s truck, his eyes shifting around and completely understanding everything they’re seeing. He reaches over and moves Richie’s hand where it’s wrapped around the flashlight, pointing it where he needs it. Richie makes note, mentally and physically and emotionally, that Eddie’s hands are warm and rough when they brush against Richie’s skin. 

Richie watches Eddie reach into the truck to uncap something, holding the lid out for Richie to take while he bends back over, slowly pouring in the liquid. 

“It looks like you’re pouring coffee into my truck. Please tell me that you’re not. I know I said that you’re cute but I don’t think I’d be able to pay you if that was the case.” 

Eddie’s lips tug up into a smile, and he shifts his head to glance at Richie out of the corner of his eye. Richie’s already watching and he doesn’t feel any bit embarrassed when he sees that blush on Eddie’s face again. “It’s called coolant. And you didn’t say that I was cute.” 

“I didn’t? I think I specifically remember calling you cute. Enlighten me, then, Eds.”

“You called me sexy,” Eddie replies, and his voice doesn’t waver on any syllable but his eyes are shy when they catch Richie’s. “The sentiment is mutual, in case you were wondering. I’ve got no idea how you manage to pull off the purple hair and red glasses and, honest to god  _ fugly _ truck, but somehow you do and it’s frustrating. Also you’re tall and I have to look up to look at you and it is completely unfair why does a person need that much leg?” 

Richie grins at the admission, bending down until he’s at Eddie’s height, his body folded awkwardly across the front bumper of his truck, his knees pressed hard against the metal. “To reach high shelves, usually. And to woo average height mechanics?” 

Eddie smells like oil this close up, not that Richie really has any idea what that smells like because, again, he’s illiterate in  _ cars,  _ or what the fuck ever, but it burns when Richie inhales too deeply and he thinks he might be getting a little high off of the scent because when Eddie smiles up at him his knees go soft and his head- which is already empty, thank you tiny Stan- fogs up and clouds with cotton. 

“I’ve been wooed since you called,” Eddie replies, because he obviously wants to give Richie chest pains. “I’m all done here.” 

Richie shakes his head, holding up the cap he still has held responsibly in his grip. If he threw it over into the bushes then Eddie wouldn’t be able to leave and Richie thinks he might just do that but Eddie’s already reaching for it. Their hands brush again and Richie wants to kiss Eddie, kiss him right on the lips and take him home, or maybe just right here where anyone could drive by and see them, just so that he could kiss him until their lips bleed or fall off or whichever happens first. 

Eddie looks over again and Richie notices the smudge of oil on his forehead, in a small little blob of black directly above his eyebrow, and Richie tugs his sweater over his hand to wipe it away. 

“You don’t have to be all done here,” Richie says, and his voice has hit that sweet spot right between being hoarse and being non existent, something he’s dubbed his ‘bedroom voice’ and Eddie seems to agree with the title because his eyes widen and his cheeks are back to being pink. “Your website says you’re open ‘till midnight and my phone says that it’s only eleven fifteen. That’s forty-five minutes of quality Richie time.”

Eddie grabs Richie’s hand when it moves away from his face, wrapping his own around it and bringing it up to his mouth to blow on. He’s so warm compared to Richie that it makes a chill run down his spine. “Okay. What do you suggest we do during our quality Richie time?” 

“I hadn’t thought that far,” Richie replies, and Eddie huffs out a little laugh against his skin that’s sending goosebumps racing down his arm. He can think of a few things that he wants to do with Eddie but he doesn’t want to try and fuck some guy he barely knows and will likely never see again. “We could talk? If you want?” 

Eddie shakes his head, his blond hair shuffling on top of his head with the movement, a few of the curls falling down onto his forehead. “I want to kiss you. Can I kiss you? You can say no.” 

Richie blows out a heavy breath, and he pretends that it’s not visible directly in front of him because sure it’s October but it shouldn’t be visible breath weather, before bending down to press his lips softly against Eddie’s. Eddie’s lips are just as warm against Richie’s as his hand is, and his mouth is somewhere between soft and chapped and when he presses hard against Richie their teeth clack and it’s wonderful. 

Richie’s had a lot of kisses and he’s had one first kiss but this feels like a million first kisses all at once and he thinks that maybe it’s the cold air wrapping around them that makes it feel so new, like their mouths pressing together is the only thing that’s keeping the world from freezing over completely. Eddie’s hand wraps tighter around his and the press of their mouths is less intimate and more demanding. 

Eddie pulls away first, gulping in a deep breath of air, and Richie follows, hating the burn of cold that fills his lungs but loving the way his mouth tingles and feels warm against his fingers. “God your mouth is cold. Did you swim in fucking ice before you decided to go driving?” 

And it’s such a funny thing to say after their very first kiss that Richie lets out a laugh that echoes on the empty street around them, and Eddie seems to find that funny because he’s laughing too and their laughs are intertwining and jumbling up until they become one  _ big  _ laugh. They’re practically falling apart in the middle of the street and Richie can’t find it in him to care. 

“I didn’t,” Richie says, when his lungs are done rumbling with laughter. “Now, if you’re done laughing at my early on-set hypothermia- and please don’t tell me that that’s not how hypothermia works because I’ve seen every episode of Grey's Anatomy twice and I can assure it is- I have a heater in my car and it’s begging for attention.” 

“You laughed too, asshole. And don’t just think that because I’m getting in your car it’s a free ticket into my ass, because it’s not. I’m not even sure I like you yet.” 

“There’s always tomorrow.” 

  
Richie doesn’t have a ticket to Eddie’s ass, and he’s been told this by Eddie multiple times, as if he’d forgotten the first time because now all he can think about is Eddie’s ass and how he can’t go anywhere near it, but apparently he’s got one for Eddie’s dick. 

It’s a bit awkward considering the back seat of Richie’s truck is off limits because (as Eddie so kindly said) “it looks like it has diseases” so they’re both squished into the passenger seat. Eddie’s knees are on either side of Richie’s thighs, and his pants are unbuttoned and Richie’s got one hand down his boxers. 

How did he get here, you might ask? Richie has no  _ fucking clue.  _ Him and Eddie had been talking about something useless like why the sky is blue or why the pyramids are  _ really  _ there (aliens: 1 vote, really smart egyptians: 1 vote), and then Eddie’s mouth was on his, unrelenting and hard and heavy against Richie. It blows Richie’s mind that he’s spoken the words  _ ‘I would have sex with an alien only for the experience points and also because I am deathly curious’  _ directly to Eddie’s face and Eddie still wants to kiss him. 

Richie swallows the gasp that Eddie presses against his lips when he wraps his fingers around Eddie’s dick, tugging him out of his boxers. He runs his thumb along the slit, gathering a few beads of precum that have leaked out of the tip and pressing his finger into his own mouth. 

“Jesus  _ Christ,  _ Richie,” Eddie says, and his voice is a whine laced with a moan and Richie blinks up at Eddie through his eyelashes. 

Richie releases Eddie’s dick and holds his palm up to Eddie’s mouth. They’re about eye level with Eddie on his lap and Richie can see the way Eddie’s eyes are nearly completely black with lust and how the moonlight pooling in through the windows and the windshield turn him into a mess of colors. “Spit, please.” 

“Are you going to eat that too?” Eddie asks but does it anyways, sitting up and looking disgusted at the way Richie smacks his hand right back onto Eddie’s dick. 

Richie leans forward and presses a sweet kiss against Eddie’s mouth, his hand still moving between them, their noses nudging together. Richie can hear the soft puffs of air Eddie pushes out of his nose and it tickles along his cheeks, and so he presses a kiss against Eddie’s nose. Richie’s dick is throbbing in his pants, because the sight of Eddie with swollen red lips and hot cheeks is making Richie’s entire body swell with a desperate want that’s tugging at the hidden corners of his body. 

“You’re so good, Eddie,” Richie says against Eddie’s mouth, and it’s far too intimate for some quicky hand job in his truck but it’s all Richie can offer without taking Eddie home and having to explain  _ that  _ to his parents. “So good for me. Look so good.” 

Eddie’s moving his hips minutely against Richie, his eyes squeezed shut so tight that his whole face is scrunched up. He gasps at Richie’s words and once his mouth opens it doesn’t close, stuck wide around the feeling of Richie’s hand on him, his fingers digging into the fabric of Richie’s t-shirt. 

It’s almost as if Eddie suddenly remembers that’ this is  _ exactly  _ a quicky hand job in Richie’s truck because then he blinks at Richie, and his eyes are wide and his mouth is still open but his hips aren’t moving and his gasping breaths have turned into something normal. “What about you?” Eddie asks, and his words sound far too innocent for Richie to currently have a hand around his dick. 

“I just figured that I’d get you off and just deal with it? I’m the asshole who made you drive all the way out here… and, anyways, watching you do all of that is absolutely the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.” 

Eddie smiles and it lights up his entire face and feels a bit weird for being aroused because it’s so  _ cute.  _ “I’m surprised that you’re not more of an asshole. I guess with this truck you don’t have the right to be an asshole.” 

“Stop talking shit about my truck! She just got you good money, I’ll have you know.” Richie’s had this truck since before he could drive and it’s an integral part of him, like his liver, and no matter how many times he’s been left stranded Richie has never forgotten any of the journeys he’s taken in this very vehicle. 

“I’m sorry,” Eddie says, and it’s very sincere, especially when he leaves a scalding kiss against Richie’s neck, and another on his jaw, and a final one on his lips. “And I wanna make you feel good, too, Rich.” 

Richie nods, and then he nods again and again because he wants Eddie to be happy and because he can’t stop thinking about Eddie’s hands and his fingers. Eddie makes quick work of his jeans, unbuttoning them and shoving them unceremoniously down his thighs, leaving his dick to spring up against his stomach, hard and red at the tip. 

Eddie’s eyes flick up to Richie’s and his eyes are so much like a physical touch, hot and expressive and reading directly into Richie’s mind and giving him what he wants. He holds his hand up to Richie’s mouth and doesn’t seem the least bit grossed out when Richie gives him a handful of spit, only moving down to wrap around Richie’s dick, his grip firm. 

“Feel so good,” Richie pants out, and the words are barely a whisper in his throat, trying to break out of his mouth. He moves his hand sloppily around Eddie again and the angle is awkward and their elbows are bent weird against the car and each other but it feels so good that Richie’s moaning out Eddie’s name and Eddie keeps pushing out these little  _ ah, ah, ah,  _ sounds that are driving Richie insane. 

Eddie’s head falls onto Richie’s shoulder and he nibbles at the exposed skin of his collarbone, teeth nipping in a way Richie would probably find painful if they weren’t in this certain situation, and he hopes Eddie leaves marks because that’s something he does want to explain to his parents so that they’ll fuck off about a girlfriend or a boyfriend and realize that this mechanic right here? Has ruined other people for Richie, because logically speaking Richie knows he’ll never meet someone exactly like Eddie again and that damn near sucks ass because he’s never felt this good from something as juvenile as a hand job. 

“I’m close,” Eddie warns, and his mouth brushes warmly against the shell of Richie’s ear when he speaks and it sends a shiver down Richie’s spine. “Doing so good, Chee.” 

Richie speeds up his hand, ignoring the protest that his wrist gives, watching how the tip of Eddie’s dick keeps appearing and disappearing into his palm. It’s mesmerizing and so fucking hot that Richie doesn’t give Eddie a warning before he’s coming over Eddie’s hand, his body still so hot against Richie’s and his mouth wet and warm against his skin. 

He runs his thumb across the tip of Eddie’s dick, feeling how Eddie shivers on top of him, and so he does it again, rubbing against Eddie’s slit and breathing against Eddie’s throat. “Come on, baby, you did so well. Come for me, Eddie.” 

Eddie thrusts shallowly into Richie’s palm four more times before he’s moaning Richie’s name and coming in his hand and on Richie’s shirt. He falls against Richie bonelessly, and his breaths are still ticking at Richie’s ear and his free hand his tangled up in Richie’s sweater. 

Now we’re to Richie’s least favorite part of the after-orgasm, when Eddie packs up and leaves and they never see each other again. It’s common and yet Richie doesn’t want to see Eddie hop into his little car with its little doors and little wheels and drive away. 

“I’m going to need your number,” Eddie says, and his voice is soft but it’s loud against Richie’s ears and it pounds through his body like a punch because he’s either going fucking crazy or Eddie might want to do this again. “Your truck will one hundred percent break down again and I refuse to allow you to go to any other mechanic.” 

Richie lets out a little laugh that’s muffled against Eddie’s shoulder. He leans his head back enough so that his mouth is free and his words are intelligible when he says, “Is that the only reason, Eds?” 

He feels the shake of Eddie’s head against his shoulder and he knows that his grin could probably light up one million Derry night skies because it hurts his face when he releases it, and he presses a kiss against Eddie’s shoulder, something like a promise because he’s too embarrassed to open his mouth and say  _ thank god, I thought you were going to leave _ . 

“We can clean up and swap numbers, ‘kay? Just wipe your hand on my sweater, it has already been thoroughly ruined.” 

Eddie looks a little guilty when he swipes Richie’s come off on the soft fabric of, admittedly, Richie’s favorite sweater- if it wasn’t his favorite before it sure as fuck was now- before tugging his pants back up and buttoning them tight.

Eddie pulls his phone out of his back pocket, and the time reads back twelve oh one, and Richie smiles because it has, officially, been forty-six minutes of quality Richie time. “What’s your last name?” 

Richie blinks up at Eddie, opening his mouth several times and closing it shut immediately after. He mumbles his answer so quiet he’s sure Eddie doesn’t hear it and he looks down at his come-soaked sweater when he says, louder, “Tozier.” 

Eddie’s quiet and his phone is quiet and the world is quiet, everyone taking front seat to listen because, “Isn’t that the Mayor’s last name?” 

“It’s- well, yeah, I suppose. It’s also  _ my  _ last name,” Richie reiterates, because if he wasn’t clear the first time he sure a fuck was this time. “Because he’s… my dad. And stuff.”

It’s quiet. Richie hates quiet- he talks so much because he can’t stand to be quiet, to hear the quiet, and it maybe has something to do with memories of a silent house with no parents and no anyone and just Richie, or maybe it’s just because Richie fucking  _ adores _ attention, truly can’t live without it! One of the upsides of being the mayor’s son is that he’s living completely under the spotlight. 

Richie looks up and Eddie’s eyes are comically wide, wider than they’ve been all night, wider than they were when Richie apologized and wider than they were when Richie complimented Eddie, and really all it ever takes is for people to find out Richie’s the mayor’s son. Him, Richie Tozier with the purple hair and red glasses and shitty truck and loud, dirty mouth, was the sperm that won. 

“I just… you just… and you’re? You’re Richard Tozier, who’s known for being a total dickback? I don’t get it.” 

“What’s there to get, Eddie,” Richie replies and his voice is sad because he feels like his last name is some stupid fucking curse and his dad just  _ had  _ to be the mayor of Shitville, Maine. “There’s a clear reason I didn’t tell you.” 

Eddie leans back on Richie’s thighs but he hasn’t gotten off or asked Richie to move or left Richie’s car and said fuck you. “So you’re telling me that your family is the richest family in this entire town and you drive  _ this?  _ Interesting.” 

“That’s what you’re worried about? My fucking truck?” 

Eddie shrugs as if to say what else is there to be worried about? Not the fact that he just saw what Richie looks like with his dick out and come all over his hand- no, the fact that Richie’s truck is a royal piece of shit vehicle that rarely gets him from point A to point B without falling into ten million tiny little pieces. “Sure. So, your number? I’m surprised you don’t have some fucking mechanic already at your house.” 

“My dad’s not the pope,” Richie replies, but his heart isn’t in his throat or his stomach or halfway down the street but it’s right where it should be, pumping away in his chest. He feels light and when Eddie laughs he can almost positively say that he’s never heard something so wonderful. “Thank you, Eddie. For not… having a meltdown, or whatever. I’ve seen people in tears before.” 

“Your dick wasn’t that spectacular,” Eddie says but he’s smiling while he says it and it has the near opposite effect of what it should have. He pops open the side door and slides out of Richie’s lap, his smile never leaving. “Bye, Tozier. Call me when you need me but not for anything else, got it?” 

Richie nods silently and watches Eddie walk away and pushes call on his phone. 

“I literally told you half a second ago not to call me unless you need me.” Eddie’s voice is so pretty and Richie feels comfortable clinging on to his every word without Eddie watching him do it. 

His smile feels unfamiliar and pathetically fond when it spreads across his lips. “I don’t know your last name. Seems unfair to me.” 

“Kaspbrak. Now hang up before I pop one of your tires.” 

Richie does as he’s told and waits until Eddie passes him and drives off before he lets out a heavy sigh, his body falling numbly into the seat. As soon as he can walk again he’s nosediving off the nearest cliff directly into a pool of water and he’s not coming back up until his dad quits his job and the Toziers become normal human beings once again. 


	2. i sure hope it does!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie knew that Stan would come up with that but he still hates hearing it. It’s what he’s been tossing around in his brain, the thirty pound bouncy ball thumping around in his skull.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> it probably would've taken me a good while to churn this out but my bestest bro beth and her friend gen helped me get this out so everyone send them your telepathic thank you's.
> 
> there's smut in this one so if you don't want to read that it's just a bit at the end you can probably skip pretty easy! 
> 
> y'all convinced me to continue this so pat on your backs i really truly hope you like it <33

If Richie is being honest with himself, which he very rarely is, he knows that he would’ve seen this coming. It’s basic math, he thinks, and that’s where the universe went wrong because Richie was never good at doing the easy stuff. He loves to overcomplicate everything, considers it a hobby. 

Richie’s life is defined somewhere in the pages of a book and all it says is _‘one night stands’_ because with his family, that’s all he can afford to have. He’s had two girlfriends and no boyfriends and so many one-night stands that he probably couldn’t name to save his life. Except for one. 

Along with the previously defined _‘one night stands’_ there’s a little note in the margin that reads: _‘Eddie??’._ Richie’s brain has been running through a near continuous loop of their passenger seat sexcapade and the more that Richie thinks about it the more he wants it again, wants Eddie again and over and over until Richie can’t stand to have any more of him. 

Eddie hasn’t texted him yet and Richie stares at his phone until his eyes water from not blinking but nothing pops up on his screen. He doesn’t drive in his truck because he doesn’t want it to fall apart and then embarrass himself by calling Eddie again and acting clingy to someone he barely knows. 

So instead Richie annoys the shit out of Stanley because no matter how much Stan disagrees, the two of them are best friends and Stan adores Richie just as much as Richie does him. 

Stan drives like he’s scared he forgot how to overnight, always keeping two hands on the wheel and never looking over at Richie while he talks from his perch in the passenger seat, his eyes always analyzing the road and the other people.

“You’re thinking about him again,” Stan says and his eyes are still on the road but Richie thinks that him and Stan have reached a point in their friendship where they can pick up each other’s feelings like they’re flashing neon signs in the pitch black night. 

Richie’s fingernails are painted red and yellow and blue and he taps them on his knee in the beat of Eddie’s name how Stan says it, lyrical and lilting and like a birdsong. “I am,” Richie confirms even though it wasn’t a question. “Silly me, getting a crush on the mechanic, I know.” 

“I never said that.”

“You were thinking it,” Richie replies. The sun glares through the windshield and pools in the corners of Stan’s car like gold and Richie reaches out to touch it but he meets nothing but air. The snow that had piled up on the ground that morning was already melting away and Richie misses the glaring white of it glistening at him through his window. 

“You don’t know what I’m thinking, Richie. I could be thinking about taking your ass to his mechanic shop so that you’ll stop fucking moping, I could be thinking about why the sky is blue and why the sun is yellow and who cuts the grass all the way out here.” 

Richie kind of likes it when Stan gets worked up. Stan has always been the calm one out of the two of them, out of the four of them in total, because Richie was loud and Beverly was opinionated and Ben spoke about what he loved with so much passion it could burn down the world. Stan keeps them in check but he spends so much time doing that he forgets that he can be loud and opinionated and he loves so many things that he burns a little bit. 

“I don’t want to seem clingy,” Richie mumbles and it's apparently the only excuse he can come up with because he’s been using it the past week. “I can’t get my hopes up, anyways. You know how the town would react if I ended up dating a guy. Derry would fucking implode.” 

Stan finds this conversation important because he pulls off of the street and into the parking lot of a beaten up Starbucks and turns off the car only to shift in his seat to face Richie. His green eyes always look like glass in the light of the sun and his eyelashes are golden and his eyebrows are wrinkled with a frown. Richie can probably draw Stan’s face from ten million different angles and yet he doesn’t think he’s ever seen it like this before, so open and concerned and containing so many different colors that Richie can barely count them all. 

“So don’t make a big deal out of it,” Stan replies easily. “Don’t take him anywhere super public, don’t talk about it to the cameras and the people, don’t show up with a bunch of hickies again. They already have questions about you, Rich, you’re not very subtle with your character. That’s what a lot of people like about you and what a lot hate.” 

Richie knew that Stan would come up with that but he still hates hearing it. It’s what he’s been tossing around in his brain, the thirty pound bouncy ball thumping around in his skull. But, “I _want_ to make a big deal out of it, you know? What if I really end up liking him? I won’t be able to hold his hand in public, won’t be able to walk down the fucking street with him without people getting in their cars to follow him home.” 

“Then we deal with it. You deserve to be happy, Richie, I don’t know why you’re so against the concept of you being with someone that you actually like. And you know that if you really end up liking him your parents will let you leave. You’re not chained here like you think you are.” 

Stan makes everything sound so simple, so black and white, so clean cut and Richie wants to see it how Stan sees it. Richie wants to scrub out the color and the jagged edges and doubt and draw them a pretty picture of Richie’s future with Eddie or whoever else he might meet where everything works out perfectly. 

Richie closes his eyes against the sun and Stan’s gaze and he lets his mind wander and wonder and think about Eddie’s blonde hair and brown eyes and red-filled cheeks. “We can’t just show up at the shop without a broken car, Stanny."

Stan starts up his car and the rumble tears through the bottom of Richie's feet like there's a stampede running down the street behind them. "Sounds like the car needs an oil change, don't you think?"

And there it is: the lingering feeling in Richie's stomach that tells him he doesn't deserve his friends, that he truly hasn't done anything to qualify him to have a person so kind sitting beside him. He's had this feeling since Stan stuck an Iron Man band-aid on Richie's knee in first grade when Richie fell off the monkey bars, had it since Beverly painted his nails green during the summer before senior year with nothing but a smile on her face, had it since Ben wrapped his arms around Richie and held him close while Richie hiccuped and cried through the end credits of _Inside Out._

But then Richie tugs his eyes open and the world is still drenched in color, the sidewalks running in golden sunlight, the sky dripping clear blue and fluffy white, his fingers running along the seams of his inky black jeans, and it's all a little easier. Stan's smile finds him in the peripherals of his vision and even the jagged edges seem a little less painful, especially when Richie smiles back. They're just two dudes smiling at each other in a silent car in a world that never stops moving.

  
  


"I think I'm going to puke," Richie comments lightly, his fingers clenched up tightly in the seat belt across his chest. The air conditioner is blowing strong against his skin and he feels raw, like someone came and rubbed his arms with sandpaper until he bled. They're idling in front of _Eddie's Place_ , Stan staring out of the windshield so that he can try to figure out which of the people loitering around inside of the building is Eddie, his body leaned completely forward in his seat while his hands grip the steering wheel like it's going to go flying off.

Stan glances over at him briefly, assessing him like he's a steak and not a person, before turning away. "No you're not. And if you do you're not going to know what it feels like to breathe anymore."

"I'm going to go in there," Richie starts, "and I'm going to walk up to Eddie and tell him."

"What are you going to tell him?"

Richie blinks slowly because he hasn't yet thought that far. His glasses are sliding down his sweaty nose but he doesn't want to take his hands off of the seat belt because it's keeping him from floating out of the car and back down the street to his house. "Probably that I can't stop thinking about him. He's really all I think about it's tiring."

Stan turns the car off, and the air conditioning stops blowing against Richie's skin, leaving him tingling and cold in its wake. "You're going to embarrass us."

"That's the plan," Richie responds, before he's clicking off his seat belt and shoving the door open. His noodle arms are still just as noodly even after the surge of confidence that tugs breathes through his lungs for him and makes him feel ten feet tall. His legs, though, they stand strong in the gust of icy wind that brushes along him, tangling up in his hair and pushing his glasses back up his nose.

Stan follows Richie through the front door and Richie pauses when he sees the blonde head of hair leaning against the front desk, back facing him and so fucking familiar it makes Richie's fingers ache. He wants to reach out and brush his knuckles along the exposed skin of Eddie's neck, just to see if he's as warm as he was that night, but he's too scared to move. His heart is running laps in his chest and his brain is still on its loop of _EddieEddieEddie_ but it's sped up because _EddieEddieEddie_ is wearing those same tight pants and his blue shirt is rolled up to the soft bend of his elbows and Richie can see oil spotting the pale skin along the back of his forearms and it makes his throat close up tight.

Eddie is talking to someone that Richie can't see yet but once they register that the bell on top of the door rings the conversation stops and Eddie turns around and he's smiling is customer service smile, the smile that's wide and kind but doesn't reach his eyes, but it gets impossibly wider when he notices Richie, and Richie's too far to see Eddie's eyes but he can imagine the way they'd light up and sparkle.

“Finally here to talk about getting a new vehicle?” Eddie asks and his voice is just as lyrical and lilting as it was before, light and teasing and tearing at the pages of Richie's heart like a pair of scissors.

Richie smiles back and it's almost like he's himself again, not the nervous, stressed out, boy-crazy version of himself that Eddie seemed to bring out of the dark corners of Richie's mind. "Never. I actually just came to put in a complaint because I can't stop thinking about a certain mechanic and it's really frustrating."

It almost feels like it's just the two of them there, under the big bright overhead lights, their feet stopped still on the bright white linoleum floors, but Stan shifts beside him, probably trying to cover up a laugh and Richie blinks at the man standing behind Eddie. He's got big brown eyes and warm skin and he's grinning at their exchange and it makes Richie feel shy.

"We can talk about that," Eddie replies and his voice is a whisper of what it was before, soft and sweet and something like a kiss from the sun and it makes Richie's entire body feel like the color pink, swirling and bright and teasing at the skin of his cheeks and his neck and the tips of his toes.

Stan shifts again, stepping closer to the front desk and Richie sees the smile on Stan's face in his peripherals, bright and wide and happy because when Richie is happy he's happy. "We're actually here because I need an oil change. I tricked Richie into coming because he was too scared to come on his own."

Richie's face burns and he smacks Stan on the arm like they're kids again, something like when they were in high school and Richie would write inappropriate things on loose leaf papers and pass them to Stan just so they'd get taken up and Stan would be forced to read them in front of the class with an angry line between his eyebrows. "Just tell him all of my secret thoughts while you're at it, Stanley."

And maybe Stan is thinking the same thing because his eyes are warm when they meet Richie's over his shoulder, his mouth tugged up in a half smile that doesn't show any teeth but brightens his entire face. "Richie thinks that the Earth is flat."

"I do not! I'm just saying they bring up some very valid points," Richie replies but Eddie laughs and he thinks that he's okay with embarrassing himself as long as he can hear that sound over and over again. He wants to wrap his pinkie around Eddie's and ask Eddie to rewrite the sounds of the universe with the soft timbre of his voice. He wants to take Eddie on a date and wear t-shirts with Eddie's face on it so that people know that Richie is his, wants to fuck Eddie in a bed rather than his car so that they can wake up tangled together the next morning. He wants to be Eddie's boyfriend.

The man behind Eddie steps up to the counter and gestures for Stan to come speak to him and Richie watches Stan walk away but he doesn't really because his eyes are locked on Eddie's. They're both trying to figure each other out from across the room and Richie knows that he'd spill out the contents of his brain in a mess of words and touches and smiles if Eddie asked.

"We can go to the office to talk about your complaint," Eddie says the words like they're written in sparkly gold ink in his brain, a smile teasing at his lips. "Come here."

Richie follows Eddie like it's all that he can do, like he's being tugged away by a string wrapped around his thumbs. Eddie leads them through the side door that goes into the shop portion of the building, and it has two cars pulled in but there's only one other person working, singing out of tune to an Ariana Grande song. Richie doesn't get a chance to look around, but he notices that it's cleaner than he was expecting and it's big and Richie feels out of place because he seriously knows absolutely nothing about vehicles.

Eddie pulls him through another door and shut it behind them. It muffles the sound of tools and music and talking and now it's just the two of them, shoved in an office with an old computer and big filing cabinets and a mini fridge and Eddie with warm eyes and a big smile on his face.

"You're so pretty," Richie says and apparently it was the right thing to say because Eddie's cheeks are dripping with pink now and his fingers are teasing at the hem of Richie's t-shirt. "I couldn't stop thinking about you."

Eddie looks up at him through his gold-spun eyelashes and his eyes are wide and brown like chocolate. "So why didn't you call? Or come see me? I was thinking that you didn't like me like I liked you or that you only wanted me once."

Richie shakes his head once and then twice and a third time. They're barely touching but the air around them feels like nothing, makes Richie feel like he's pressed up against Eddie with fingers running through the blonde mess of curls on top of Eddie's pretty head. "I was scared. I didn't want to seem too eager, you know? Or scare you off, or something, because I know that I can do that with my big mouth."

"If you were going to scare me off it would've happened the first time we met. I like you, got that? Doesn't just go one way, Tozier, not at all."

They stand there in silence for a moment while Richie tries to catch the scattering thoughts and colors and feelings that are slipping out of his ears and buzzing through the room around him so that they can make room for Eddie in his brain. "Can I kiss you?" Richie asks because it's the first thought that he can make into words and it sounds pretty good to him.

"Do you promise to call again?" Eddie says and his voice is quiet and vulnerable in a way that Richie has never heard it before. It feels too intimate for a dingy room in the back of a car shop, but Richie thinks that they two of them have figured out how to make everything seem so perfect.

Richie nods and his words fall from his lips like sticky honey. "Of course I do. As soon as I get your phone number, cutie."

Eddie doesn't respond but he's pushing up on his tippy toes and pressing his lips against Richie's and it isn't rushed or explosive or desperate like their first kiss but it's soft and warm and it steals away the air in Richie's lungs.

Richie wraps his arms around Eddie's waist and hold Eddie to him, and Eddie smiles into their kiss and they're both red in the face and everything feels perfect until Richie opens his mouth and says, "You know there are a lot of other things my big mouth can do."

Eddie pulls his face away so that he can look Richie in the eyes and they both stay silent while Richie watches a plethora of different emotions play out on Eddie's face, in the curve of his eyelashes and the pull of his lips and the deep bits of his eyes and the tan of his skin, before he decides on a raise of his eyebrows and a nibble of white teeth on his pink bottom lip.

"The door has a lock," Eddie replies and he's whispering but his words are so loud and they make Richie's body burn like someone lit a fire under him or inside of him.

Richie unwraps his arms from Eddie's waist but he keeps Eddie close, one hand holding tight to the soft curve of Eddie's hip while he reaches out to flip the little lock nestled into the door handle. The light in the office is a harsh yellow and it wraps around Eddie and makes his tan skin look like gold. He's the prettiest thing that Richie has seen in forever, something out of a painting or a picture book or a movie, and it's almost unreal how much he wants to sit here forever and watch the way Eddie's skin glistens when he moves and shifts.

But instead Richie drops down to his knees, his fingers, clenching at the fabric of Eddie's pants in question. "Are you sure you're okay with this?"

Eddie nods and he looks like he's trying to keep himself sane, his eyes blinking quickly down at Richie, his fingers twisting tight in the soft blue fabric of his own shirt, his knees wobbling a bit as Richie sits back on his heels. "So okay with it."

"Then stop acting like I'm made of glass," Richie responds, grasping at Eddie's hands and pulling them to his head, an offer. Eddie cards his fingers carefully in the mess of purple curls on top of Richie's head, tugging sweetly and pulling a whine out of Richie's throat. "I'm gonna let you fuck my face until you come, 'kay?"

Eddie's mouth pops open and his cheeks burn a dark red, bright and soft and perfect and making Richie's chest ache. He wants to hold Eddie's hand and play with Eddie's hair and kiss Eddie until their mouths fall off but instead he unbuttons Eddie's pants and tugs them down so that they hang around his ankles.

The room is quiet, everything watching and waiting for Richie’s first move. He smiles up at Eddie and smiles at the ceiling and the floor and the filing cabinets and all the little papers inside of them but his smile his wiped away when he licks a stripe up Eddie’s dick, his fingers gripping the base of his cock gently while his other hand is wrapped up and warm against the soft skin of Eddie’s thigh. 

A moan floats through the room, tugged out of the bottom of Eddie’s throat when Richie blows cool air against the head of Eddie’s dick, pressing a kiss against the red-slick slit. 

“What if I hurt you?” Eddie asks and his voice is rough and hoarse but sweet and sticky like candy stuck on the back of Richie’s teeth and he grips Eddie’s thigh a little tighter, until he’s sure there are imprints of all five of his fingers on the skin. 

Richie leans back on his heels so he can look up into Eddie’s eyes. He feels like a whore down here, his knees on the dirty floor and his lips already slick with spit and precum, and he fucking _loves_ it, espeically with the way Eddie is looking at him like he’s a second away from coming all over Richie’s pretty face. “I’ll tap your thigh twice to tell you to stop. I kinda like being choked, though, so don’t mind all the tears and spit. Just think of it as motivation to go faster.” 

Eddie nods and he looks so innocent, his bottom lip being tugged at desperately by his teeth, his eyes big and brown and shy, his cheeks dripping red and pink. Richie hates that he’d so much rather have Eddie naked and spread out in front of him so he could map out the bumps and curves of his skin, the colors wrapped around his fingers and in his eyelashes and hiding under his tongue. 

Richie wraps his lips around the head of Eddie’s dick, suckling and swallowing the tangy precum coating his tongue, his eyes open wide behind his glasses and blinking right up at Eddie, watching every twitch of a muscle on his cheek and feeling every flex of his fingers in Richie’s hair. 

He breathes through his nose while he takes more of Eddie into his mouth, taking his other hand off of Eddie’s cock and putting it on Eddie’s thigh, his mouth holding open wide when Eddie begins to thrust shallowly against him. Eddie’s tugging tight at his curls, moving his hips forward and pressing Richie’s mouth further onto his dick, his big eyes locked onto where Richie’s mouth is wrapped tightly around his dick. 

Richie’s hard in his pants but this is about getting Eddie off, because he’d waited so long to come see Eddie and because he wants to be good, wants to make Eddie feel nice. He loves the feeling of Eddie’s hand in his hair, adores the soft whispered moans that fall from Eddie’s lips like secrets, and even though there’s spit dribbling down his chin and tears building in his eyes from the burn of his jaw he presses Eddie to push deeper. 

“You’re so pretty, Rich,” Eddie says and the sound of his name from Eddie’s throat makes him moan, his fingers holding tightly to the warm skin of Eddie’s thighs. “Look so pretty on your knees.” 

Eddie’s voice isn’t any louder than a whisper but it echoes through Richie’s head and through the office and through the entire world before it’s doubling back and hitting Richie again, his eyes finally squeezing shut tight because he thinks that he’ll be coming in his pants sometime soon if he keeps seeing the way Eddie’s red-bitten lips circle to form the moans he’s spiling out over and over again in breathy little _ah, ah, ah, fuck’_ s. 

The slow, leisurely pace of Eddie’s hips suddenly speed up, like he’s chasing something or trying to prove something or he likes the way Richie looks beneath him almost as much as Richie likes the look of Eddie above him. Richie gags and the tears that were threatening against the back of his eyelids spill out down his cheeks but his veins are thick with blood and warm with arousal and he could probably write a thesis over the shape of Eddie’s dick, and the veins and ridges that paint his length. 

The sound of spit and moans and whines is loud in the room and Richie can’t even bother hoping that no one has any idea of what they’re doing in there because he’s sure that the entire world can hear them, can feel the way Eddie’s moans rumble through his skin like Richie can, can see the scratches Richie is leaving on Eddie’s thighs and the purple curls slipping through the space of Eddie’s fingers as he tugs and pushes and pulls. 

Richie doesn’t make a habit of this; he doesn’t like the idea of people seeing him with his mouth open and his face red and his chin covered in spit and precum and tears, especially when all they’d have to do was take a picture of him and they could ruin his life, but Richie trusts Eddie explicitly. He trusts Eddie even when he shouldn’t, when he’s known him for the little bit of an entire week, when all Eddie has done was his job and then trade handjobs in the passenger seat of Richie’s car, but he thinks that Eddie maybe feels a little bit of what he feels, what he felt this entire week, the nagging thoughts and the burning fingertips dipped in red and blue and purple and green, the silver shine of the moon through Richie’s window that made him want to see what Eddie would look like spread out on his bed. 

“Fuck, Richie, you’re so good, puppy,” Eddie praises and his voice is at the end of a moan, hitched up high and pretty and needy and gasping. Richie moans around Eddie and swallows down his gasps and tries to breathe deeply and Eddie smells sweet like strawberries but sweaty and oily and it’s irresistible. “Gonna come soon.” 

Richie’s eyes are burning with tears, hot and shameful burning down his cheeks and he wants to breathe deeply again and feel his lungs full of air but he’d much rather feel his mouth full of Eddie’s come so he blinks his eyes open and stares up at Eddie. Eddie’s already looking down at him and his eyes are completely dilated and blown out with lust and his face his warm and glistening with sweat and he’s so perfect. Richie doesn’t understand why liking someone like Eddie would be all that bad because he feels _happy,_ feels content to know that he’s making Eddie feel good. He wants the people in Derry to know that the mayor’s son is the homo they’re always saying that he might be and he wants them to know that he likes getting on his knees for his mechanic. 

Eddie takes one of his hands and presses his thumb against Richie’s bottom lip that’s already spread wide around his cock, rubbing it in the spit and precum and tears and pressing it into Richie’s mouth alongside his dick, and he’s looking down at Richie like he’s mesmerized by the sight of him. “Do you wanna swallow my come, puppy?” 

And Richie nods because he thinks that he’d love to have Eddie’s come all over his eyelashes and in the soft parts of his cheeks but he also wants to be able to see how Eddie looks when he’s having an orgasm, wants to memorize the furrow of his brow and the way he tugs on his lips and clenches his eyes shut. 

“Good boy,” Eddie says and his hips are stuttering into Richie’s mouth and he’s holding Richie’s head as far down onto his dick as it’ll go, thrusting loosely into his lips. Riche’s moaning around Eddie, humming and licking what he can, his fingers running up and down and up and down on the skin of Eddie’s thighs. He feels Eddie’s muscles clench when he comes, thrusting weakly into Richie’s mouth that’s dribbling with come now, and his eyes are squeezed shut tightly, his lips hung open in a draw out moan of Richie’s name, the syllables lost in the sound of blood rushing through Richie’s ears when he jerks forward and comes in his pants like a sixteen year old. 

He’s coughing around Eddie’s dick trying to swallow down his come and deal with the shaking of his limbs from his own, and Eddie seems to realize this, pulling out quickly and bending down to Richie’s height so he can press soft, spit slick kisses on Richie’s sweaty forehead. They’re both breathing heavily and Richie’s fingers are trembling in his lap, the tears on his cheeks still warm when Eddie brings his fingers up to wipe them away. 

Richie blinks up at Eddie and he feels warm in the chest, like that light on the ceiling is the sun and they’re stepping directly under its rays, because there are stars in Eddie’s eyes when they look at Richie, his mouth quirked up in an embarrassed smile. 

“Did I hurt you?” 

Richie shakes his head, swallowing down a mouthful of come and spit so that he can speak, “You did amazing.” His voice is hoarse and barely there and his jaw is already beginning to ache but Eddie’s smile grows into something happier and Richie thinks that he’s okay like this. “Will you go on a date with me?” 

Everything seems to quiet down at that, the buzzing feeling in Richie’s chest slowing down to a hum and the constant glittering in Eddie’s eyes shimmering away and Richie thinks that he fucked it up. He looked too deep into it and all those kids were right back in middle school, no one wants to date the boy who talks too much and has big buck teeth and glasses that are always sliding down the bridge of his nose. Eddie was just teasing Richie to see how far he could get Richie to go with his silly little hopes and wishes.

Richie’s going to open up his mouth and apologize and stand up and walk away and never ever come back not even if his truck broke down, but then Eddie’s nodding over and over again and leaning forward to brush his lips against Richie’s even though they’re disgusting and he’s smiling wider than Richie has ever seen it before. 

“Only if you’re paying, rich boy,” Eddie responds. Eddie runs the tips of his fingers along the heated skin of Richie’s cheek and down the length of his neck, stopping at the collar of his shirt, running along the skin back and forth and up and down. 

Richie’s body is buzzing and his head is a little fuzzy from the lack of air but also because the boy he likes likes him back and he’s back to swinging on the swingsets with Stan and Beverly beside him, the two of them with their hands wrapped around Richie’s while they planned out their future. Beverly said that she would become a famous designer and she would repay her aunt for taking her in when she was a baby, that she’d get married to some tall handsome man that loved her for her and didn’t ask her to change (then two years later she met Ben and somehow everything stayed the same because Ben loves Beverly more than the stars in the sky). Stan was quiet, like he was thinking real hard about what his future would be, before he squeezed Richie’s hand tight and said, with all the conviction a freshman in highschool could, that he would be able to be honest with himself about who he was and meet a guy that didn’t force Stan to kiss him in the streets because Stan was still too scared to do anything that’d get anyone hurt. And Richie, not trying to be funny or loud or anything most of the people saw, said that he wanted to get out of Derry and become his own person, maybe meet a boy or girl on the way out and then they’d fall in love, all while he was known as Richie Tozier, designated class clown and giant softy, rather than Richie Tozier, mayor’s son. 

Now, with Eddie’s warm brown eyes and curly blonde hair and peppermint kisses on the tops of Richie’s cheeks, Richie thinks that he’d be okay with staying in Derry as long as he got to tell the world that he liked Eddie, _the_ Eddie of _Eddie’s place,_ a whole fucking lot. 

  
  


The car is quiet, Richie invested in his hot chocolate and Stan laser focused on the road. The hot chocolate helps with the ache in Richie’s throat but he doesn’t think that he wants it to go away because he wants to remember Eddie in any way he can. 

“I sucked his dick,” Richie says and he’s staring out of the window, watching the grass and bit of road blur past him in a jumble of dead brown grass and gray and yellow.

“I did not fucking need to know that, you pig,” Stan replies but he’s smiling a bit around the corner of his lips because he’s got the number of Eddie’s cute coworker tucked into the back pocket on his jeans.

Richie smiles and he can see his reflection in the window, can see Stan’s behind him, and he reaches out a hand to settle on Stan’s knee. “Who would’ve thought that you and I would be sluts for mechanics? Neither of us know shit about cars.” 

Stan shoves Richie’s hand off of him but Richie can see the way Stan blushes in the reflection and he closes his eyes up against the sun. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next chapter is where the fun begins!! i'm probably adding in the other losers because i miss them :( i hope everyone enjoyed this one!!
> 
> i based eddie's shop off of the one my dad works at because i fucking love that place. i used to sit in the office when i went in with him and watch mr. mom 'till i fell asleep. 
> 
> thank you for reading!! kudos and comments are welcome (and very much appreciated) <33
> 
> love, tori


	3. i'm in me mum's car vroom vroom

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Are you asking the four of us out on a date, sir?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i'm really regretting the decision to put vines as the titles

Richie thinks that he fucked up. Not, like, the “oh no I dropped my mom’s favorite mug and shattered it into three billion pieces, what am I gonna do?” fucked up, but the “I may or may not have spewed my guts to my parents about having a date with a boy and not a girl _(surprise??)_ who’s also not super rich like everyone else we’re always around but is a literal mechanic who has oil on his hands all the time” kind of fucked up. The life ruining kind of fucked up. 

He’s notorious for being absolute shit at keeping his mouth shut about things he’s happy about-- oh, like that time Beverly came home to find the entire place covered in candles and rose petals and Ben and she wasn’t at all surprised because Richie told her the entire plan over a glass of wine and an entire bag of Doritos? Yes, exactly like that time-- and now he’s projectile word-vomiting all over the goddamned living room and his parents haven’t spoke in the past thirty minutes. Richie hasn’t gotten his lungs from a stranger, no sir, his mother can talk forty five miles a minute when she gets excited and his father has something to say about every single thing on the entire Earth, and Richie’s got both of these traits, plus some. 

Richie’s staring at his mom and dad, while they stare at him and then each other and back at him, and their house has honest to god never seen so much silence, not even while the Toziers are sleeping because all of them snore and sometimes Richie talks in his sleep. Their chicken sandwiches are half eaten in front of them and Richie’s glass of Root Beer looks extremely inviting but he’s too afraid that if he moves the spell will break and his parents will start yelling. 

They’ve always had their questions about Richie’s sexuality, especially when he began painting his nails in high school, but anytime he’d come home with a girl they’d be placated. Yet, somehow, they’re not too surprised. Because Richie is Richie. He’s loud and obnoxious but he’s also emotional and loving and he has never been able to hide his feelings because they’re always written plainly on his face and the angles of his shoulders. They notice when his ears turn pink around their neighbor’s son Sebastian, or how he plays with his fingers when he gets nervous around any of the son’s that their friends bring over when they have parties.

“He’s a mechanic?” Maggie asks, and her voice is so harsh in the quiet room that Richie flinches and looks down at his knees, which are red and angry underneath his orange-painted fingernails. 

Richie didn’t tell them _everything,_ because admitting to his parents that he adores choking on dick and getting called pretty and being told that he’s a good boy sounds like a terrible experience, in Richie’s opinion. He told them enough, though. “Yes. He’s a mechanic, he’s got his own shop; he helped fix up my truck a few weeks ago. You know- even Stan likes one of the workers there! And Stan has only liked fucking birds since he came out of the womb.” 

His father clears his throat and Richie’s still too scared to look up. These are his parents, and he knows that they love him, but he also knows that the social climate of Derry equates to 1960s America where gay men were being beaten within half an inch of their lives and no one did a thing about it. 

Went clears his throat again, and either he’s got a piece of chicken that’s refusing to go down or he’s gently telling Richie to stop trying to rip the skin off of his knees and look at him. So Richie does, and his father has a small smile on his face. The skin around his eyes wrinkle with it and he doesn’t look disgusted or angry. He almost looks _proud_ , and Richie is going to remember this moment for the rest of his life and likely cry about it as soon as he gets back into his bedroom. “First, you need to learn word placement especially with adverbs like fucking because you’re making it sound like Staley has sex with birds. Second, and Richie, you need to listen very closely to this part. Are you listening?” Richie nods slowly, his eyes never leaving his father, hanging onto each and every word he says. “Good. Your mom and I literally couldn't care less about who you date.” 

Maggie leans forward, as if to physically insert herself into the conversation, her curly brown hair moving around her shoulders like its got a mind of its own. She also has a smile on her face, one that’s almost always printed on her skin like a tattoo, and her eyes are warm and loving and soft when she blinks up at Richie. “I, personally, have a few exceptions to that. I don’t want you to date anyone who only wants you for your money, or someone who doesn’t care about you, or someone who’s shitty to your friends, or someone who’s a danger to you or society.”

“There go my plans to marry the convicted felon that I’ve been sending fan mail to,” Richie says, and the joke isn’t funny because his eyes are welling up with happy tears. His chest feels warm, like his heart is just radiating joy, like his blood has been swapped out for sunlight in his veins and he’s probably glowing like the chandelier dangling prettily above them. “So, like, I wasn’t expecting this response and I genuinely have no idea what to do with it. Thank you. For not disowning me.” 

Maggie’s eyes have gone a little fuzzy and Richie thinks that maybe she’s holding back tears, too. He doesn’t understand why the two of them are crying but he also doesn’t understand a lot of stuff, like why he was afraid to tell his parents that he’s bisexual when they’ve been nothing but supportive his entire life, or why he’s itching to text Eddie and tell him about this. 

“We could never disown you,” Maggie replies. Her voice is soft like her eyes and her teeth are sparkly when she smiles at him. “You’d never leave, anyways. Tell us about this Eddie.” 

Richie nearly explodes when his mom says that, and he tugs his mental essay over the non-sexual bits of Eddie, which is at least the size of a college textbook with words written in eleven sized font. He’s got a lot to say, and his parents are both down to listen, strapped into their metaphorical seatbelts, both of them wearing smiles that resemble the sunrise. 

  


_“Why were you scared?”_ Eddie asks, and his voice rumbles down the line, somewhat like his regular voice and somewhat like a robot, and the realization makes Richie think about humanity’s future as slaves for the robots who are going to take over and rule the world in fire and revenge. 

Richie’s long legs are wrapped in his fluffiest pair of pajama pants and his fingers are twisting in the loose fabric of his t-shirt, that once belonged to Ben and then Beverly and now has a home as Richie’s favorite sleep shirt. He finds buckets of comfort in Eddie’s voice alone, and he wonders what’s going to happen when he inevitably fucks everything up. “They’re my parents, yanno? I want them to be proud of me, which is an archaic morality to have and was probably first written in shit on cave walls, but it’s like this… it’s like this tugging in my chest that’s always telling me to be the perfect son. To be more like Stan, who has probably never done anything wrong in his entire life.” 

Eddie’s quiet for a moment, like he’s mulling over Richie’s words. It’s late and Richie’s whispering even though their house is giant and his parents are on the complete opposite side of it, but the late night moonlight and soft sound of the snow hitting his window makes him feel fragile. 

_“Is that why you paint your nails? And dye your hair? So that you’re your own person?”_

They’ve been talking since the sun began to fall and now it’s nearly twelve in the morning, and talking to Eddie makes Richie feel warm and fuzzy and happy. He could probably fall asleep like this, his body sunk into his bed and his eyes shut against the sound of Eddie’s voice soft in his ears. “Subconsciously, yeah. Initially it was just me thinking that I would look badass with purple hair, and somewhere along the line it morphed into me not wanting to fit the mould that everyone expects me to. It sounds stupid.” 

Eddie hums, and Richie tries to imagine Eddie, curled up in his bedroom under the blankets with soft hair and big bleary brown eyes. _“I don’t think it sounds stupid. Sometimes you sound smart, whenever you’re not spewing all that bullshit you insist on talking.”_

“Not bullshit, spaghetti, these are the speakings of a man who has seen the truth of the universe.” 

_“Speaking of truths, I’ve been wondering what your natural hair color is. Mike, Bill and I have all got a bet going. Mike thinks black, Bill thinks red, and I think brown. Care to indulge me?”_

Richie smiles at the idea that Eddie has been telling his friends about him, even the mysterious Bill that Richie has yet to meet. It feels a little bit more than domestic, and it makes Richie’s little heart pitter-patter away in his chest. They’ve been texting nonstop for what’s wrapping up to be an entire week, and Richie thinks that at this point he could bullet point out a very detailed list of all of Eddie’s mannerisms, and his unironic use of an extensive amount of emojis. “Hate to tell you that you’re all wrong, Eds. I’m actually bald. This is a wig. Didn’t you know that rather than dye our hair, us rich people just buy a new wig for every day of the week?” 

Eddie giggles and Richie could never get enough of that sound. He’s got one single filing cabinet in the storage locker that is his brain and it’s full of Eddie. Eddie’s laugh and Eddie’s mouth and Eddie’s hair and Eddie’s motherfucking smile. The smile that flashes against Richie’s closed eyes with every other blink, at least. _“Your tactics to distract me are very predictable. Also you’re an idiot.”_

“Thank you, my love, feels great to hear that. My hair is naturally red. Not orangey red like Ron Weasley’s but also red enough to be annoying. My dad has the same color and you bet your fucking ass he cursed me to have it, too. Recessive genes and punnett squares and shit.” 

_“I don’t know whether or not to be surprised at the fact that you have red hair or that you know anything about Harry Potter.”_

“Choose your battles wisely,” Richie replies, but his words are mushy in his mouth. He’s more than halfway asleep, at this point, and he can’t keep his eyes open to stare out of his window anymore to count the stars. “I think I’m fallin ‘sleep, spaghetti man.” 

The line goes quiet and Richie’s sure that he’s asleep, or that maybe he’s been asleep this entire time and has been dreaming up this conversation. _“Do you want me to sing to you? I don’t have the best voice but my dad sang to me when I was younger and it feels nice, sometimes.”_

Richie doesn’t have the energy to do more than hum an affirmative at Eddie’s words, despite the fact that he wants to ask Eddie more about his dad, about his childhood that Eddie has kept hidden so diligently underneath his carefully spoken words. 

_“Settle down with me. Cover me up, cuddle me in,”_ Eddie begins, and his voice his barely a whisper, and Richie’s not even sure if Eddie’s singing or talking the words but it’s okay. _“Lie down with me, and hold me in your arms. And your heart’s against my chest, your lips pressed to my neck. I’m falling for your eyes but they don’t know me yet, and with a feeling I’ll forget, I’m in love now.”_

If Richie wasn’t listening through a cloud of sleep he might make a joke about Eddie-Eds-Ed singing Ed Sheeran, but his voice his lost somewhere down the black hole in his brain, and so is everything else. His brain’s being spaghettified and by the time he’s reaching singularity Eddie’s voice is almost too far away for him to understand. He doesn’t know if he’s imagining the way Eddie’s voice is getting softer and softer, like he’s singing these words only for Richie’s ears. 

  
  
  
  


Beverly’s feet are hitched high up on the table, her dress falling up high on her legs and fifteen year old Richie would likely be creaming his pants at the sight of her milky thighs scattered with freckles and moles and divots of past memories, but right now all Richie cares to do is shove her feet off of the table. “I want to meet him.” 

“Were you raised in a fucking barn? And no, you’re not meeting him. I trust none of you around Eddie. None. Of. You.” 

Ben sits in the seat beside Beverly and takes her feet into his lap when she offers them. His face is a water paint mixture of reds and yellows and browns, and his blonde hair is soft and silky when Richie pats his head sweetly over the table. 

“Stan got to meet him!” Beverly argues. She’s got her flaming red hair in two braids and her green eyes are sharp and warm and bright and she’s possibly one of the prettiest things on Earth. Richie knows this, and, logistically speaking, he probably should care more about this fact, but he finds that all he can stand to care about is the huge, Beverly-shaped headache pounding behind his eyes. “Stan gets to do everything.”

Richie shakes his head, and his phone buzzes in his pocket but he forces himself to ignore it and make unflinching eye contact with Beverly. “Did Stan get to be my first kiss? You’re damn right he didn’t. Because you know why? Beverly Marsh did. And, anyways, Stan didn’t meet him. Stan stayed flirting with Eddie’s coworker while _I_ met with Eddie.” 

“He did a lot more than meet with him!” Stan adds from his place perched in the kitchen, waiting for the coffee to finish brewing so he can drown out everyone’s voice with caffeine. 

It’s not often that they all get to be together like this, without a bunch of other people listening to their conversations and waiting for someone to say something out of place that could either ruin their lives or give their reputation a nice hole right in the center of it. Beverly and Ben’s apartment is probably Richie’s favorite place in the world; their floors are always clean enough for Stan to not bitch about it, and they’ve only got two bedrooms compared to the eight in Richie’s home, and their fridge is always stocked to the brim with the bullshit unhealthy food that Richie absolutely devours any chance he gets. There’s little pieces of all four of them around the entire place, a picture of Richie sitting in Beverly’s aunt’s kitchen chair while Bev stands behind him with a hair dyeing kit, or a picture of Stan and Ben pouring over Stan’s bird books, or the letter Ben wrote Beverly after his first time ever talking to her hung up above their bed like something right out of Grey’s Anatomy. 

“I didn’t know you were Richie’s first kiss,” Ben says, but he’s not jealous like most boyfriends would be. He’s got a small smile on his lips that he saves only for his friends, the one Richie has dubbed his ‘Dad smile’ because he looks almost proud at finding out that his friends are just as emotionally intertwined as they seem. 

Richie’s phone buzzes again and Beverly seems to notice this time, her eyes going wide with realization. “Is that him?”

Richie shakes his head fervently. “No. Definitely not. Who’s him? Let’s talk about us kissing again, I think that Ben is very curious.” 

“Why don’t you want us to meet him?’ Ben asks, and he’s using the puppy-dog eyes and the honey-sweet voice on Richie. They’re stronger than any type of military weapon and they are Richie’s weakness. He has a button somewhere on his internal motherboard that’s just got _Ben_ written on it, and it’s big and red and he doesn’t have any control over when it gets pushed or what happens when it’s pushed. 

Richie’s fingers pick at a hole in his jeans and his eyes travel all around the room, from the dark wood table that probably costs as much as Richie’s truck, to the pale yellow painted walls of the kitchen, to the dark vinyl floor under the pads of his feet. “YouguysaregonnaembarrassmeandIreallylikehimandhewon’tlikemeback.”

Beverly smiles, like she has the answers to the universe and she’s got direct lines of communication to Richie’s brain and she heard the words move from his head to the tip of his tongue. She knows exactly what he said, which is exactly why she asks, “What was that? I didn’t hear you.” 

Richie sighs, and the amount of air that his lungs release could probably fill four-to-five cans of carbon dioxide, his hands slamming down on the table in a sign of complete and utter defeat. “You know what I said, you fucking devil.” 

“I don’t know what you said,” Stan replies, his hands wrapped around the mug of steaming coffee held carefully in front of him. He’s wearing one of the most casual outfits Richie has ever seen Stan in, which is including Stan’s pajamas because they’re the kind of pajamas that look like a five-piece tuxedo, just a long-sleeved navy blue shirt and some Nike joggers that hug his skinny legs tightly. 

Richie groans, throwing up a middle finger at Stan. He has the _worst_ friends. He takes back every single nice thing that he ever said about them- and he’s serious this time. It’s not like that one time Beverly spilled mustard down the front of Richie’s favorite shirt while they were watching a baseball game, or that other time Stan got really drunk and threw up all over Richie’s favorite pair of purple converse. Oh, no. Richie could not be _more_ serious. 

Ben’s frowning, a small downturn to his lips, and the motion makes his eyebrows furrow up like he’s thinking real hard about something. Richie waits with bated breath, ready for Ben to come to his defense and- “So what I’m gathering from this is that you’re either embarrassed of us or embarrassed of him, and honestly both of those options are extremely offensive to everyone involved.”

“I’m not embarrassed of him!” Richie argues, and his phone is buzzing continuously in his pocket, like he’s getting a phone call. He holds up his hand to his friends and clicks accept. 

_“Richie? Are you okay?”_

Richie glances as his friends while he replies, “Yes, of course. What’s wrong?” He’s really not embarrassed of Eddie. He doesn’t think that any part of Eddie is embarrassing; what Richie is embarrassed of is himself. 

Eddie breathes out something that sounds like a sigh of relief. _“You weren’t answering my texts so I got nervous. Fuck, that makes me sound so clingy.”_

“No it doesn’t,” Richie replies, and he can feel his cheeks burning red. He chooses to ignore the snickers that he detects not only from Beverly, but also from Stan. “I’m surrounded by complete idiots so I was a bit distracted. I’m sorry.” 

_“Don’t apologize. Are you with your friends? Actually, that works out really well. Listen, I’m out with Mike and Bill right now and they’ve been pestering me to meet you since I first brought you up to them and it’s exhausting and I’m about two seconds away from either killing them or living the rest of my life in complete solitude.”_

Richie smiles, and he glances over at all of his friends who’re watching Richie talk with sharp eyes. Beverly has a dopey smile on her face and Richie takes back what he says: he loves his friends more than life itself, but he also wants to make them into origami sometimes. “Are you asking the four of us out on a date, sir?” 

Eddie laughs a bit at the terrible attempt at a British accent, light and sweet and airy. Richie can make out the sound of other people speaking on Eddie’s side of the phone, maybe Eddie’s friends or maybe the people at the restaurant where they’re at. _“If I were to be asking the four of you out on a date, what would you say?”_

“I’d say to send me the address,” Richie says, and Ben claps while Beverly’s grin threatens to eat up her entire face. Stan doesn’t do much, but then again that’s nothing out of the ordinary. Richie can’t wait until Stan finds out his beau is there too.

  
  


They show up to a Chilli’s that’s periodically spitting out customers with their hands stuffed full of complimentary mints, Beverly leading the pack with her hand wrapped around Richie’s as she violently tugs him up to the doors. Richie wouldn’t say he’s being difficult, per se, but he’s digging the heels of his feet into the concrete, probably fucking up the rubber bits of his dirty Converse. He wants to see Eddie- _fuck,_ Richie always wants to see Eddie, it’s really not healthy and it’s also super fucking frightening considering he’s known Eddie for, like, two weeks. 

Also, Richie is really scared that Beverly is going to embarrass him. They’ve been friends for more years than fingers he has on his hands and she’s been there to see some of his lowest points in life: the time that Richie cheated on his girlfriend with her best friend when he was so drunk that he didn’t even know his own name, the time that Richie smoked so much weed he puked for probably thirty minutes with two minute breaks between barf sessions. Hey- he’s human, he makes mistakes, and he’s also a complete fucking idiot. 

“Really, Richie! Stop being such a fucking pussy,” Beverly yells, and normally Stan would be beside them telling Beverly to quiet the fuck down before he sews her lips shut like in Coraline, but he’s sidling up behind Richie and shoving at his shoulders to get him moving forward. Ben is watching it all go down from the sidelines but Richie can practically see the ‘Go Beverly!’ shirt that Ben’s wearing. 

Richie wants to stomp his feet and blow ten billion raspberries until his tongue flies out of his mouth, but there are people watching and he’s about twenty years too old to be going back to being four again. “Do you promise to not embarrass me? I mean, _seriously,_ I think I can fucking do it myself by just existing.” 

“Yes, we know this!” Stan says, and his voice is sharp but Richie is about eighty-six percent sure he’s holding back a laugh. “Your twenty-four years of life have shown us this perfectly well. Please stop acting like a child now, you’re scaring the actual children. And Ben. You’re scaring Ben and the children and I think Eddie is watching through the window.” 

They don’t have to keep tugging him once he hears that, oh no. Richie stands straight up and pushes past Beverly to step into the restaurant. Richie thinks that there’s a word somewhere that describes him, laid in the line between over-dramatic and annoying, maybe a perfect mixture of the both, but for some reason that’s beyond Richie and beyond the universe, Eddie stands face to face with Richie and he has a smile brighter than the yellow sun smack dab in the center of his face. 

“You put on a wonderful show for me.” 

Richie smiles and dips into a small bow, ignoring the eyes that are on him from all directions- you would think that people would learn some sort of subtlety, but at this point his life is far more important than basic human decency- before he stands to look at Eddie sweetly. “I’m glad you liked it, Eds. I missed you, you know?” 

“We talked twenty minutes ago” Eddie deadpans, but Richie isn’t imagining the softness pooling in Eddie’s big brown eyes. Richie’s not confident enough to imagine someone that beautiful and sweet looking at him like he drew up the blueprints of the universe. 

Richie nods, and he itches to grab Eddie’s hand and wrap it in his and press his lips against Eddie’s, but instead he takes a small step back and gestures to his friends who’ve piled in behind him. “That gives me twenty minutes to miss you. Anyways, here are my fucking friends, I hope you’re happy.” 

Richie doesn’t know how he knows, call it spider-sense, call it common sense, but he knows as soon as he says that, that Beverly is going to put on her brightest smile and bounce up to Eddie like they’re in zero gravity, shake his hand and spew some niceties to him so she can get on his good side. Logically speaking, Eddie probably doesn’t have a bad side, and even if he did Beverly is incapable of being disliked, but he knows Beverly’s going to lay it on real thick. 

“I’m Beverly! It’s so nice to finally meet you, Richie talks about you so much it’s so embarrassing, really. And this is my boyfriend Ben, and that’s Stan but you already know that-” 

Richie takes a steadying sigh and wills himself to keep the smile firmly planted on his face. 

  
  


They’re all squished together in what’s probably a four seater booth, Bill sat happily in a chair at the end watching everyone try and fit their elbows and knees and shoulders into the booths comfortably. Richie is pressed against Eddie and a wall, but he can’t find it anywhere within himself to be anything close to upset, even if he has to sit face-to-face with a smug Ben. 

Mike and Bill and Stan are all chatting at the end of the table, and Richie glances over to watch how Stan leans across the table to hear Mike better when he speaks, or how sometimes Mike’s words make Stan blush. Richie wants to point at them, wants to tell Beverly “Hey! Embarrass someone else for a change, I want to take my chances with the cutie to the left of me!” but he can’t throw Stan under the bus like that. Stan’s the only reason that Richie’s sitting her beside Eddie, in the first place. 

Beverly leans across the table, looking softly at Eddie with her big blue eyes, and Richie shares a glance with Ben and they both have the same sentiment in their eyes. _Fuck._

“So, Eddie, how did you get into cars?” 

Richie feels Eddie shift beside him, and Eddie is practically radiating warmth, his fingers wrapped around Richie’s thigh burning holes into Richie’s thick jeans. “My dad taught me when I was young. We started up fixing his old truck, and then we fixed up Mike’s old truck, and so on. He urged me to get my own shop.” 

Richie didn’t know that. Eddie has been very quiet about his own past, and Richie knows that it’s rude to push and shove, that Eddie will come to him when he’s ready. Richie understands, though; there’s something about Beverly that makes it so much easier to talk. Maybe it’s the way she looks so very interested in every single word, or how she genuinely cares, Richie hasn’t been able to figure it out. 

Beverly smiles, sickly sweet and pure and loving, before she’s saying “that’s amazing. I bet he’s so proud of you.” 

Ben’s leaning into Beverly’s side, almost like the two of them have been coated in gorilla glue and pressed together, and he nods along with her words. “Richie’s told us… pretty much nothing, but we do know that you have your own shop.” 

Eddie’s fingers move higher up on Richie’s thigh and Richie is holding his breath. His nails are scraping along the inside stitch of Richie’s jeans, right in the fleshy part of his upper thigh, but his eyes haven’t yet strayed from the two people sat in front of them. 

“I chose to keep everything secret, Benny, because you and little Annie over there always manage to embarrass me, without fail,” Richie says. He hopes that he’s only imagining the shake in his voice, because if his friends catch drift of it they’ll know what’s happening almost immediately. 

Beverly frowns at the nickname, and when she leans forward to flick Richie on the forehead her red hair brushes against the table in its loosened braids. “You embarrass yourself enough without us, dickhead.” 

Richie pouts and rubs at the spot on his forehead he’s sure is forming, directly above his big eyebrows and big glasses. He turns to Eddie and pouts some more when Eddie doesn’t look even a bit sorry for him. Rather- Richie’ll probably look back on this moment in the open, public booth in his town’s one and only Chilli’s and laugh, maybe get a little warm under the shirt- he cups his palm around Richie’s crotch. His hand is so, so fucking warm even through the layers of Richie’s jeans and his boxers, and Richie should maybe be worried about how hot Eddie’s body seems to run, but he can’t focus on anything more than the press of fingers against his crotch and, by association, his dick. 

“They’re right,” Eddie says, and is he speaking under water? Is this Chilli’s flooding, right here, on this very Saturday afternoon with the sun bright and high in the sky and the snow melting into puddles right outside the window? 

Richie nods, his mouth a little dry and sticky when he says, “Beverly’s never right.” 

Stan grins from his spot across from Mike, Richie sees it in his peripherals, and Richie’s more than a little bit scared that Stan knows what’s happening beneath their poor, innocent table, but he doesn’t have anymore juice left in his voice box to speak again. He’s all dried up, like Stan’s mom’s vagina- ha!- and he literally, physically, metaphysically, can’t fathom uttering any words beyond _fuck me._

Eddie’s eyes are hot when Richie meets his gaze, and his fingers squeeze once more before he tugs his hand away from Richie’s crotch and sets it on top of the table, grasping at his sweet tea. “Next time,” Eddie promises, softly, quietly, just so that Richie can hear.

Richie wants to ask when next time is but their waitress comes back over, asking for orders and refills, and Ben steals away Eddie’s attention as soon as she leaves. Richie’s going to waste away, in this very Chilli’s, and his dick could, quite possibly, fall off of his body. He’s already planning his and Eddie’s date and he knows, for a fact, that it’s going to be the best date ever had. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> take a shot every time i say chilli's
> 
> i started school thursday and i'm warning everyone now that i’m actually drowning and i've only had two days of classes, so updates will be not any time soon. i was completely unaware that my bio class would involve doing statistics so extremely upset and also very confused : (
> 
> thank you for reading!! kudos & comments are welcome <33
> 
> love, tori


	4. get out me car

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Richie smiles at the awe that drips from Eddie’s words like he’s never seen the Derry night sky before. “I actually got the idea on that first night we met.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i know you've been asking yourself: angst? what angst? haha time to find out. 
> 
> if you want a song to listen to while you read this, i wrote most of it listening to "A Song for You" by Kishi Bashi. the song really has nothing to do with the chapter but fuck it's some good music

Richie knows the facts. He knows he’s loud, and obnoxious, he knows that the sky is blue and the Earth travels around the Sun- that’s right, fuck you Ptolemy- and he knows that he likes Eddie Kaspbrak. He knows it, his parents know it, his friends know it, majority of the whole fucking world knows it. But the city of Derry, Maine doesn’t know it, and that’s where things get complicated. 

  
  
  


It’s almost three in the morning. Richie has slept an entire thirty minutes. _Thirty fucking minutes._ There’s something stuck in the nerves behind his eyes and the stem of his brain and the gray matter bursting in his skull. He can’t stop thinking about the curve of Eddie’s lips, the way his teeth glint when he talks, the way his eyes shine honey in the sun. It’s distracting. 

So distracting, in fact, that Richie snatches his phone off of the night stand and unplugs it. 3:14 blinks back at him, and he can feel the ache in his eyes burn at the sight. He has twenty text notifications from his group chat with Ben, Beverly and Stan, ten snapchat notifications from their group chat on there, and fifty-five on their Twitter group chat. Why do they need so many group chats, you ask? He’s got no fucking clue, but they just kept multiplying and now his battery dies in twelve minutes. 

The call rings three times before it clicks through. Eddie’s voice is groggy and raspy with sleep when he says, _“You better be dying.”_

“I am, Spaghetti!” Richie sounds too awake. He sounds like an absolute lunatic, and he probably fucking looks like one with purple hair sticking to different spots on his face and dark circles under his big eyes. “Dying with my affection for you. Please put me out of my misery.” 

_“I’m considering it,”_ Eddie replies. _“Explain why you’re calling me without being an asshat.”_

Richie grins. Maybe, somewhere in his tiny brain where Stanley sits in a leather chair with a glass of Brandy and a book full of poetry about how birds are a metaphor for love or something, Richie has the capability to think. Because he planned for this question. Planned so hard, in fact, that he’s already got a bag packed. “I’m coming to see you.” 

_“Wonderful,”_ Eddie says. It sounds like he’s turned on a lamp and suddenly his voice is a bit clearer when he says, _“why did you have to call me at three in the morning and tell me this? Everyone else in the world wakes up at seven.”_

“No, I mean I’m coming to see you now! I packed a bag and everything, brought a toothbrush- and my own toothpaste because I know you hate when other people’s bristles touch your paste- and some underwear… I have Candyland if you want it, I don’t know how you feel about it but I like looking at the little characters.” 

_“You’re coming to see me. At three nineteen in the morning.”_

“If you’re okay with that?” Richie asks, and the Stan in his brain laughs because he didn’t think about Eddie saying no. That’s the thing: Richie thinks, does it all the time- like should he offend that lady with the bob and the soccer mom van, or should he offend the old white man wearing a baseball t-shirt from approximately nine hundred years ago when people still watched baseball?- but he doesn’t think about the useful stuff.

Eddie doesn’t reply but Richie thinks he might hear a sigh or some sort of _what the fuck have I gotten myself into?_ sound that he hears often enough he’s almost used to it.

“Sorry I just sprung this on you. I couldn’t sleep and if I make coffee my mom’ll wake up because she’s been trained to wake up when she smells coffee, back when Pavlov was still around, and I was thinking about _you._ Usually at three in the morning I think about something normal like the possibility of there being other solar systems exactly like ours but where I’m Stan and he’s me and I like birds and he wears holes in his jeans instead of those fucking black slacks he always wears. I mean, you would think that he just doesn’t wash them and wears them everyday, but he has twelve pairs hanging up in his closet it’s stressful to look at and-”

 _“If you say one more word,”_ Eddie says, and Richie’s out of breath when he stops talking to listen, _“I’m going to bust out your kneecaps when you get here.”_

Richie grins, and he throws his backpack over his shoulder, heavy with a change of clothes and his toiletries and a few different board games. “Is that a yes I hear?” 

_“A very hesitant yes.”_

“Good enough for me. What’s your address?” 

Eddie giggles but he’s almost shy when he replies _“I’ll text it to you. Just… remember that I’m a mechanic, okay? I don’t make six figures so my house is a little, uh, modest.”_

Richie eyes his bedroom, the king bed and twelve drawer dresser, the walk in closet, the bathroom with a tub and a shower and two sinks, his extra space where him and Bev take turns trying to cartwheel every Friday night, and he shuts off his light. “Can’t wait to see it. Send the address, honeybunch.”

 _“Only if you promise to_ never _call me that again.”_

“Absolutely not,” Richie says. He sets the little note he wrote for his parents on the counter, right by the coffee machine so he knows for sure they’ll see it before he leaves. 

  
Richie knocks three times. He considers ringing the doorbell but he looks behind him, up at the sky where the moon and stars wink down at him, and decides it’s not the best option for Eddie’s neighbors. 

Eddie pulls his door open almost immediately, as if he was waiting by the door for Richie, and the hinges squeak obnoxiously loud in the soft quiet of the night. Eddie’s dressed in fluffy pajamas and his blond hair is wavy on top of his head like he hasn’t had time to brush it out, but his eyes are warm and bright. 

“Aren’t you gonna hug me?” Eddie asks, and he laughs when Richie scrambles to wrap his extremely awkward limbs around Eddie’s waist. 

Richie shoves his nose into Eddie’s hair and closes his eyes to breathe him in. “Missed you, Eds.”

Eddie squeezes Richie a little tighter. They’re on Eddie’s front porch, where anyone could drive by and see them- but really, who in their right mind would be up at this hour?- and Richie realizes he could care less. He’d probably give Eddie a big, wet kiss right in the middle of their eleven o’clock church service as long as they got to go home together afterwards. “Missed you too, puppy. I made some coffee, if you want to come into my house instead of stinking up my front porch.” 

The moment is gone and Richie frowns as he follows Eddie into his house. “Stinking up? This is the first time I’ve worn these pajamas this week.” 

“I’m so concerned for you,” Eddie replies. He runs his fingers along the walls of his house while he walks his white slippers slapping softly on the tile floors. 

Eddie’s house is nice, tidy and cleaned spotlessly. It smells faintly of lemon and _maybe_ lavender- Richie thinks that every flower smells like lavender and really doesn’t understand why people feel the need to romanticize a plant- if he sniffs real hard. It’s quiet, the late hour tucking a warm blanket around the sleepy city of Derry, and Richie can see that Eddie is feeling the affects of the late (early? learly? eate?) hour. 

“I like it,” Richie says and Eddie glances at him quickly like he’d forgotten Richie was there, taking up a small bit of space in the small bit of living room. “You’d hate how my room looks; I haven’t vacuumed since 2004.” 

Eddie smiles, his teeth shining something like pearl in the low lights of his living room and hallway, although there’s a small bit of disgust in the curl of his lips when he registers Richie’s second sentence. “That’s disgusting. You’re the nastiest human being I think I’ve ever met.” 

“Funny, I was just thinking the same about you,” Richie replies, gesturing to Eddie’s extremely full bookcase tucked beside Eddie’s small leather couch. They’re both leaning against the wall, but Richie really wants to fling himself onto the couch and curl up in the throw blankets Eddie has strewn about. “I can’t believe you own every single book in the Fifty Shades of Grey series.”

Eddie’s a mind reader, is the only thing Richie thinks when Eddie grabs Richie’s hand from where it had been awkwardly dangling down by his side and tugs the two of them to the couch. “I only appreciate it for the sex. Honestly, Ana was just insecure and inexperienced and Christian saw that and- initially- used her for that.” 

“Sounds like you’ve written at least three essays over it,” Richie says. He slips off his (extremely real, extremely hideous) Gucci slides before settling his feet beneath him on the couch, criss cross applesauce so that his knee touches Eddie’s thigh. “I watched the movies once when I was drunk with Bev.”

“And?” 

“Woke up the next morning with the worst hangover I’ve ever had and a suspicious blank spot in my memory, so it seems my brain took care of the trauma for me.” 

Eddie scoffs, but he moves his leg and their knees are pressed fully against one another. It’s childish, and makes Richie feel like he’s seven-and-a-half years old, but his tummy swells with butterflies and he brushes his fingers along the seam of Eddie’s pajama pants. “I missed you, you know.” 

“I do know,” Richie nods, “which is why I showed up. My Eddie senses were tingling.” 

“That’s absolutely one of the worst things you’ve ever said to me,” Eddie responds, and there’s a bright little smile on his face that tells otherwise. He intertwines his fingers with Richie’s and holds both of their hands on top of his lap. “What are your Eddie senses saying now?” 

Richie pretends like he’s thinking, but really he knows he’s going to voice the only thing he’s been able to think about since he showed up at Eddie’s. “That you want to kiss me,” he decides on finally.

“What if I say you’re wrong?” Eddie asks. His eyes are so deep, so dark in the low light, that Richie can barely tell what he’s thinking. It’s intoxicating trying to guess. 

Richie’s glasses slip a bit down his nose when he leans forward to get a better look at Eddie and he leaves them to balance precariously on the crook of his nose so that he can count the freckles under Eddie’s eyes. “Then I’ll say that I want to kiss you.” 

Eddie uses his free hand to gently tug the glasses from Richie’s face, setting them onto the coffee table like they are some precious China his mom has sworn him to never damage _or else._ “And if I say that you’re right?” 

“Can I kiss you?” Richie asks, because he’s tired of playing and because Eddie keeps licking at his bottom lip and it’s far too intoxicating. They’re only three or four inches apart and Richie can see the exact second Eddie’s skin spreads into red like watercolor.

Eddie nods and closes his eyes, and leans forward and Richie closes his eyes and they’re kissing. Every time feels like the first time and it’s sweet and soft and gentle and Richie’s throat fills with honey and red hot fondness. He doesn’t love Eddie- couldn’t possibly, yet- but he’s grown so fond, so in _like_ that it’s nearly painful. 

Their fingers manage to find each other over the bump of Richie’s knee and their palms press together. Richie feels hot prickles of electricity running across the skin of his arms and he’s sure that if he opened his eyes to look there’d be blue sparks crawling up his veins. 

Richie pulls away so that they can both take in needy breaths against each others lips. It’s quiet and romantic and almost too much. They’re dangling right on the edge of becoming something more and just being there to have a good time with each other. When Richie thinks real hard, which is a strange feat in itself, he realizes that him and Eddie have been on this edge since the first time they met. This is just the perfect time for Richie to make a decision and so, with his heart in his throat, he stares right into Eddie’s soft brown eyes the color of chocolate and potato skin and whatever else and he says- 

“I want to have intercourse with you.” 

Eddie blinks twice before he pulls away, his eyelashes tangling with Richie’s for a second just so soft and barely there. “You want to- why do you have to say it like that?” 

“It’s just a synonym for sex,” Richie responds. He got Eddie to smile, though, and that’s usually all that matters to him. “Listen, if you don’t wanna that’s all you gotta say, no need to insult my vocabulary. That’s an eleven letter word, I’ll have you know. 63 points in a game of Scrabble.” 

“Why do you know that?”

Richie shrugs, and the hand pressed against his starts to feel a little damp with sweat. He can’t tell if it’s his or Eddie’s, but he knows that one or both of them are nervous out of their goddamned minds. “I like Scrabble. I meant what I said, though.”

Eddie opens his mouth to reply before he shuts it. He leans even further away from Richie, as if the close proximity is clouding his mind, and he looks at Richie. Like really looks at him, his teeth clamped on his lip and his eyes running along the lines of his body in a way that isn’t sexual but is rather curious. “I want it too.” 

Richie pushes out a heavy sigh, “Thank fuck, all that silence was really starting to get to my head.” 

“What’ll we be after that, then? Is it just going to be a one time thing that we just forget about, or is there going to be… like, after sex cuddles?”

“I want what you want,” Richie replies. “But I also really want to be your boyfriend. There’s just something we have to do before the sex stuff.”

“You’re the one that brought up the sex stuff,” Eddie mumbles. He looks a little bit disappointed, like he _actually_ wanted to have sex with Richie- that’s a goddamn miracle- but he smiles a bit. “I wanna be your boyfriend, too.”

“Cool, okay, put on some shoes,” Richie says, and his words are a bit rushed because his brain is on some fucking tredmile contraption in his head and catapulting around his skull. “I was going to take you out on a date sometime soon so that I could actually ask you with some fucking picnic and chocolate covered strawberries, but I guess this’ll have to do.”

Eddie’s cheeks look warm, especially when Richie presses his lips against the corner of Eddie’s mouth sweetly. “You better still get me chocolate strawberries. They’re going to be all I think about.” 

“I promise you’ll get your fucking strawberries. Do you have a blanket we can bring, too? Maybe some pillows, if we want to lie down.”

“What do you have planned, Chee?”

Richie shakes his head, standing and tugging Eddie up with him. Eddie’s a few inches shorter than him, enough to where Richie’s lips can press up against the tip of Eddie’s nose without him having to bend down. He does this, and Eddie’s cheeks fill with red- even in the low light, Richie can see how intoxicating it looks. “You’ll see, Eddie love.”

  
  


“Do you ever wish you could take a mental picture of something?” Eddie asks, his eyes trained on the spread out sky above them. Stars dot the sky like pin pricks in the universe, and with their heads pressed completely against the windshield of Richie’s car the sky is all that they can see. 

Richie glances over at Eddie beside him, his eyes lingering on Eddie’s soft bottom lip, and watches the moonlight dance along Eddie’s skin. “Sometimes. Usually whenever I’m looking in the mirror. Or watching the Bachelor.” 

“That’s really fucking annoying of you,” Eddie responds, but there’s a grin tugging at his lips. “I’m being serious, though.” 

The stars are reflecting in the dark circles of Eddie’s eyes, sparkly and silver and mesmerizing. Richie looks until his eyes burn from not blinking, and then he stares a little more. “Yes. Right now, I think.” 

They’re wrapped in a bubble of soft feelings and warm fingers and pretty smiles. Richie’s stomach is fluttering with butterflies like he’s back in eighth grade again, watching Jessica Johnson twirl around him in a frilly pink dress- but instead he’s watching Eddie with fluffy pajama pants and soft hair blink over at him. 

“Less annoying of you,” Eddie says. He tugs his green blanket up to his chin, his fingers clenched tightly in the soft fabric. “Is this our first date?”

“That was the plan. Unless you’d rather I take you somewhere fancy; I just figured you’d want something special, just the two of us.”

Eddie looks so small like this, and Richie just wants to wrap his arms around Eddie and hold onto him until the sky explodes around them in ten billion years. “You’re right. It’s beautiful out here.” 

Richie smiles at the awe that drips from Eddie’s words like he’s never seen the Derry night sky before. “I actually got the idea on that first night we met.” 

Eddie turns on his side, giving his full attention to Richie. His big brown eyes make Richie a little nervous to speak, make the top of his mouth gummy and sticky on his tongue, but Richie keeps his eyes on the swirling shades of silver and black and purple and blue on top of them. 

“I called you to fix my truck and I sat in the front seat and counted the stars until you showed up. And then after, when you left and my dick was all tingly, I looked up at the sky and I was thinking… those stars just saw you destroy my penis- those are _our_ fucking stars now, you know?” 

It’s silent for a moment, almost like Richie’s words cast a blanket of quiet over the area, sweet and soft, before Eddie giggles into his hand and douses Richie’s silence-blanket in gasoline and lit it on fire. “You’re so fucking strange, Richie Tozier.” 

“And you like it,” Richie shoots back, finally turning to glance over at Eddie. His chest warms at the softness in Eddie’s gaze, something that says Richie is worth looking at, that his thoughts and ideas mean something in this world of everything. It’s teasing dangerously close to the ‘L’ word Richie has been actively avoiding like it has the plague or syphilis. 

Eddie shuffles closer, the hood of Richie’s car protesting so loud its like a gunshot across the silence of the night, and tucks his head into the crook of Richie’s shoulder, his nose pressing warm against Richie’s skin. “Only when you’re not talking.” 

Richie smiles but his eyes are closed so tight he can’t see if Eddie smiles back. It’s okay, though, because in a few minutes they’re both asleep and the stars tickle their cheeks like holographic fingers. 

  
It should be the sun, trickling upside down into the sky in shades of red and gold and orange, that wakes them up; it’s not, and Richie really, _really_ wishes that it was. There’s something so ominous about waking up before the sun does, especially when you were nearly awake to see it rise in the first place. 

It’s different waking up to the night sky than it is falling asleep to it. Richie’s first thought is that him and Eddie slept their entire day away on the hood of Richie’s car in the middle of fucking nowhere while the moon laughs away in the corner of the sky. The second is that he really needs to change his ring tone because the shrill sounds of Katy Perry singing is not the best thing to hear first thing.

Richie clambers around in his pocket for his phone, flinching at the measly _6:30_ winking back at him. His father’s face takes up the screen, and Richie feels the sudden, desperate urge to ignore the call and stay here with Eddie forever, until his phone dies and then dies again and his car freezes and they can’t sleep anymore. 

“Hello?” Richie asks, his voice harsh and rough, his eyes shut tight behind his foggy glasses. His fingers are freezing and so is his phone against his face, but his mouth is warm where the words come out. 

_“You need to come home, Richie,”_ Went replies, and it’s that tone of voice that makes Richie nervous. It’s not Good Ol’ Went! calling to chat with his son at six thirty in the morning because that’s just what Good Ol’ Went!’s do. It’s Dad Went, scary Dad Went that grounded Richie on the downhill fall of his junior year because Richie smoked so much weed he painted their back garden in seventeen different shades of vomit. 

Richie feels Eddie shift beside him, and suddenly it’s hard to breathe in the cold air of the morning. “Why?” 

Went doesn’t sigh, because usually when Richie questions him it’s a bunch of sighs and passive aggressive words that allude to the fact that Richie needs to just do what he’s told. _“Someone got a picture of you at dinner with your friends and Eddie. Can you guess who has someone’s hand down their pants in the picture?”_

Richie wants to say _‘it was_ not _down my pants, I am a gentleman’_ but he knows how much his father cares about their reputation. Richie truly and honestly could care less because he has not one single shit to give to most of the people in their town- but for some reason, Richie’s father loves this town. “I’ll be there in thirty minutes.” 

His father hangs up for him, and Richie sets the phone down when he hears the click. He looks over at Eddie, who's blinking up at him with red-rimmed, sleepy eyes and a soft pink mouth that's tugging down in a small frown. 

"Who was that?" Eddie asks, his eyes moving across Richie's face quickly, more alert and awake and observant at this point. Richie always hopes that he's magically learned how to keep his emotions off of his face, but he's constantly disappointed by his own self. 

"My dad. We've gotta go, love. I'll tell you on the way home, okay?" 

Eddie nods and, despite the fact that Richie might've just fucked his entire life up- possibly even his dad's career, because when Richie fucks up he likes to do it at an astronomically large size- he presses his lips against Eddie's and swears that he'll make it better. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *cracks knuckles* set myself up for another month and a half of writer's block. 
> 
> i'm so so sorry it took me so long!! i've been focusing all of my energy on school and trying to keep my grades up (am i succeeding? debatable) if this chapter is trash just know that it is because i can't feel my brain!! 
> 
> thank you for reading!! kudos and comments are welcome (and much appreciated <3) thank you all for being so patient while i churned this out
> 
> love, tori

**Author's Note:**

> i hope you enjoyed!! i actually was going to make this a multi chap fic but i didn't think people (me) would like it too much because the plans for it are very fluffy. i'm willing to make a sacrifice and Write More so let me know if that's something you want!
> 
> thank you for reading!! kudos and comments are welcome (and much appreciated :)) <3
> 
> love, tori


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